British Columbia’s move to push schools across the province to adopt a year-round calendar could promise smarter, happier — and even fitter — students, studies say

British Columbia’s move to push schools across the province to adopt a year-round calendar could promise smarter, happier — and even fitter — students, studies say. Nevertheless, the plan is already generating fierce opposition from teachers and school support workers.

If successful, the B.C. initiative would be a significant coup in a three-decade campaign to bring an end to the traditional two-month summer holiday, a lasting relic of the 19th century.

“Come August, kids are looking for things to do,” said Joan Hamilton, principal of a year-round school in the Toronto area. “People should be catching on.”

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George Abbott, the B.C. Education Minister, introduced legislation on Friday that would eliminate mandatory school calendars in the province. B.C. students would still go to school for the same number of days, but administrators would be free to draw up schedules that stagger vacation time throughout the year.

The decision ultimately will be up to the board. Schools boards in Vancouver and Kamloops have alreadys aid they are considering the measure.

‘What we now have is a pretty strong case that children learn better when they don’t have a long summer break’

“What we now have is a pretty strong case that children learn better when they don’t have a long summer break, that a shorter period where they’re away from school is better,” said Mr. Abbott.

The idea of the B.C. legislation is to prevent “summer slide” — the phenomenon where children forget their math, science and reading skills over the course of the summer. In a 2008 paper, the Canadian Council on Learning estimated that students lose as much as one month’s learning during summer vacation.

The learning loss is particularly hard on children from low-income homes, who often return to class lagging behind children who spent their summer at camp or in tutoring. As students “get older this gap is compounded, as disadvantaged students fall further and further behind,” wrote the Toronto District School Board in a 2009 report.

In South Korea, Singapore and New Zealand, three countries that consistently rival Canada in academic rankings, summer vacations are no longer than six weeks.

Summer breaks may even accelerate childhood obesity, according to a 2007 survey by Ohio State University statistician Paul von Hippel that found children were gaining weight two or three times faster during the summer months. If “you have some Tom Sawyer idea that kids are climbing trees all summer and only eat when called to dinner, that doesn’t square with the fact that they’re gaining weight so quickly,” Mr. von Hippel told the U.S.-based National Summer Learning Association.

Caroline Krause, a former principal with Grandview Elementary School in Vancouver, told the Vancouver Courier in 2010 that year-round education would help level the playing field for aboriginal and inner-city students. “We felt that two months in the summer was too long for inner city students to be out of school … Many of [them] had nothing really productive to do in an inner-city neighbourhood during the summer months,” she said.

The school tried to move to a year-round model for the 2003-04 school year but according to Ms. Krause, the plan was nixed by school trustees. “I was told that some of the unions, especially CUPE, were against any change, and that I would have to back off,” she said.

‘I was told that some of the unions, especially CUPE, were against any change’

Union opposition to the Mr. Abbott’s legislation has been swift. Susan Lambert, president of the B.C. Teachers Federation, told Postmedia on Friday that most teachers will be reluctant to give up an extended summer break. “I can tell you that teachers need their summer break,” she said. At a convention in Victoria on Saturday, CUPE B.C., the union representing school support workers, passed an emergency motion opposing the move as a thinly veiled cost-cutting measure that would “victimize vulnerable students who have weaker school attachment.”

Canadian academic reformers began to take year-round schools seriously in the 1980s, leading to the establishment of experimental year-round schools in Ontario, Alberta and B.C. As of 2010, Canada counted about 100 of the unorthodox schools.

“It’s all about using time wisely; we don’t have to spend the same amount of time reviewing as other schools would,” said Ms. Hamilton, principal of Roberta Bondar Public School, a year-round elementary school opened in 2005 in the outskirts of Toronto.

Students at Roberta Bondar typically report for their first day of classes in late July, but are repaid with a two week “fall break” in October, an extra week of vacation at Christmas and spring break and a week off in February.

In March, following on a massive jump in test scores, the Fraser Institute pegged Roberta Bondar as one of the top elementary schools in the surrounding region. Whenever a position at Roberta Bondar opens up, Ms. Hamilton said she is barraged by applications. “Many teachers have said to me, ‘Summer is just too long, I’d really rather have a week off in October,’” said Ms. Hamilton. “It’s good for students the same way it’s good for staff.”

A persistent myth is that summer holidays are a relic of Canada’s agrarian past: Rural farmers needed their children free during the summer months to help in the fields. Of course, summer is not a particularly busy time for Canadian farms, and it is more likely students owe their July and August vacations to 19th century problems with hot, humid school buildings or worries that children’s brains would burn out without a substantial cooling-off period. National Post, with files from Postmedia News• Email: thopper@nationalpost.com

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